What makes a story engaging are the details that are weaved in between the sentences and paragraphs. They could be some random facts about some obscure topic, or insights into a character’s past, giving us more information as to who they are or how they became who they are.
When I write the first draft of a story, it’s often written without embellishment, like a painter sketching the composition on a canvas to decide where the objects will be before painting in the details of color and tone and light. Besides, if the composition doesn’t work, how much time would they have wasted to start over again?
Even in the paintings of Van Gogh, it’s fascinating to see the brush strokes and the angles at which he painted on the canvases. Likewise, in a story, the details sprinkled in throughout help the reader to visualize and form a picture of the characters and the world. In fact, in all fields and endeavors, it is the details that give clarity and brilliance to the things that would be otherwise cooke-cutter.
Fallton Havenstonne 